The town of Esquel with its Mountain Activities Centre La Hoya prepares itself for the beginning of the 2007 winter season.  With snow more than a meter high at the foot of the mountain, the maintenance of the slopes for the general intake of the skiers will begin in the next few days.

With an investment of US$ 300.000, the hotel Regent Palace from Buenos Aires completed the redesigning of its 140 rooms and the rest of the facilities.  The four star establishment was inaugurated in 1986 and is part of the Ferrucci group of companies.

Cubana de Aviacion suspended its direct flights between Havana and Cordoba.  The flight was cancelled due to strictly commercial reasons and not due to airline operational reasons.

The ecolodge “La Aldea” will be the first of 17 tourist enterprises to be inaugurated, which are under way in the 600 hectares of Iguazu.  The four star hotel will be inaugurated at the end of August; it will consist of 20 rooms at the outset, since the construction of 20 additional ones has been foreseen.

The tourist complex, Altos del Aguila, will be constructed in Atlantida.  The project implies an investment of US$ 69 million and includes a 5 star hotel, a casino, golf course and a sport port.  The construction will start at the beginning of 2008.

The Leadgate consortium, the main shareholder of Pluna, announced the purchase of 15 Canadian aircrafts that will be operative next year.  Pluna will have four weekly flights to Madrid, three of them direct and one with a stopover at Rio de Janeiro.

American Airlines began its first direct flight between Montevideo and Miami.  This flight consists of three weekly frequencies; Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Ocean Air executives confirmed that they will open offices in the country to operate in the region with passengers and cargo. It is the third time that they have been in Paraguay, although periods of time were not mentioned.

Varig will add six Boeing 767 and five B737-800 to its actual fleet of 17 aircrafts until December, informed Tarcisio Gargioni, the President of Marketing and Services of Gol.

With Brasilian and Dominican capital and an investment of US$ 12 million up to date, Sol Dominicana Airlines will begin to fly in August, with hub in La Romana, Dominican Republic.  At the beginning, the regular flights will be to Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Cancun, Aruba, Caracas, Curacao and Buenos Aires, likewise to Toronto and Berlin.

LAN’s weekly offer of 35 flights from Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to Santiago of Chile, via LAN, will be extended from July 1st to August 31st with six additional flights.

The President of the Swiss Transatlantic Corp company will enter into a “joint venture” or shared risk agreement with the employees and the Board of Directors of LAB, which will allow the reactivation of the Bolivian company with an initial investment of more than US$ 6 million. The subscription of the contract is subject to the transference of 50% of the property shares of the airline that are at present being held by the employees.

LAB received the final salvage offer from a company of European capitals that negotiated with the airline in parallel to Swill Transatlantic Corp.  The Helitel.Com-AirConsulting society showed interest in investing in LAB for operating of routes especially to Europe, but with other conditions and under a different concept to that proposed by Swiss Transatlantic.

If the citadel of Machu Picchu is chosen as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, a great feast will be prepared in the Inca Sanctuary to celebrate the selection. The mayor of the district pointed out that the feast will be on a large scale, with civic and cultural activities.

Last Wednesday, the inaugural flight of Spirit Airlines arrived in Peru, with an offer greater than one thousand seats per week that will link Miami and Lima. This arrival, besides of increasing the connection level between Peru and the United States, means the recognition of the country as an appropriate market for investments.

The inclusion of the Galapagos Islands in the list of World Heritage Sites in Danger of the UNESCO will be useful to correct errors and existing problems in the archipelago, the Minister of Tourism of Ecuador declared. He also pointed out that this inclusion, decided on in the New Zealand town of Christchurch by the World Heritage Committee of the UNESCO, does not imply withdrawing the status of Galapagos Islands as a Natural Heritage Site of the World.

The 2007 Salinas Summer season begins with a large tourist offer that, besides beaches and sun, provides the opportunity of having contact with live nature. These offers imply the sighting of hunchbacked whales, bird watching and other natural resources.

The Sol Melia group introduces CIC Solways in Colombia; the wholesale travel operator that already has offices in Mexico, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Canada, Moscow and Argentina.  Well-known in the international market, it invests in Colombia opening its offices in one of the best times in tourism.

International Hotels Group (IHG) opened the Holiday Inn Express Hotel and Suites Medellin, this being the fourth hotel managed by the group in Colombia and the second in Medellin.

Copa Airlines received its seventh Embraer 190 aircraft, thus increasing its fleet to 31 aircrafts.  The airline has projected ending 2007 with eleven aircrafts.

The northern zone of Nicaragua launched the Route of Coffee, a tourist Project aimed at diversifying its activities and offering the opportunity of getting to know the beauty and the work of these properties.  This project, which implies a total investment of US$ 6.7 million, will be carried out during a period of four years, as from 2007.

Aeromexico begins the operation of three new flights, one to Chicago and two more from Durango to Mexico City, with a frequency of five days a week for national flights and twice a week to the United States, during the high season.

Businessmen of the Diestra and Altaria groups met with the Mayor of Aguascalientes to present him with the project of a hotel and Convention Center that they will construct in the northern zone of the city.  In said construction, US$ 25 million will be invested and the Marriot group will be in charge of the management of both facilities.

A more dynamic website, an original design and many browsing improvements are the three features that have been searched for in the new website of the Spanish hotel chain solmeliacuba.com, so that the search of a hotel is a more appealing process. It allows the internet user to know where he is within the website at all times, and provides information on Cuba as a destination and the regions where the 24 hotels and resorts are located.